Three-dimensional tropospheric water vapor in coupled climate models compared with observations from the AIRS satellite system

摘要

Changes in the distribution of water vapor in response to anthropogenic forcing will be a major factor determining the warming the Earth experiences over the next century, so it is important to validate climate models' distribution of water vapor. In this work the three-dimensional distribution of specific humidity in state-of-the-art climate models is compared to measurements from the AIRS satellite system. We find the majority of models have a pattern of drier than observed conditions (by 10-25%) in the tropics below 800 hPa, but 25-100% too moist conditions between 300 and 600 hPa, especially in the extra-tropics. Analysis of the accuracy and sampling biases of the AIRS measurements suggests that these differences are due to systematic model errors, which might affect the model-estimated range of climate warming anticipated over the next century.